


Don't You Be So Happy- And For Heaven's Sake, Don't You Be So Sad

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: You Make Me ___________________. [3]
Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, and start getting real, disguised as a simple story about what happens when people stop being polite, recreational mind games, terrible people being terrible to each other, word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 06:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3347333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you know how to pony?  Do you know how to twist?  Well, it goes like this, it goes like this...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't You Be So Happy- And For Heaven's Sake, Don't You Be So Sad

**Author's Note:**

> Look- it's a series! The title of which comes from something that Richard Hell once wrote on his chest. The title of this story comes from the song by Television, Marquee Moon. The quote in the summary comes from Patti Smith's Land/Land Of A Thousand Dances/La Mer De.  
> This is not the story I wanted to write. This is, however, the story that came out. I posted it for the sake of being completest, but I wouldn't say that I'm happy with it. This is not me fishing for compliments, I assure you. Let the reader beware...  
> I am not associated with the production of Constantine, and this school is not associated with the production of Constantine. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

There are some things you just aren't ready for. Most of the time, the universe doesn't give a fuck, but sometimes, just sometimes, it lets you off easily. They're too wrapped up in each other to notice anything else, so Chas decides to let things stay as they've been. For just a little bit longer.  
He scoops up his keys, leaves John's house, locks the door after himself, and drives back to his own. It's a still night, cool instead of cold, and the air has that liquid feeling that it sometimes gets. Like you're stirring it as you wend your way, your wake a rippled thing. He goes home. About half an hour ago, he very carefully stopped thinking about what he saw, and he keeps doing that, filling himself with the absence of thought. It's like breathing when you're hung-over, and you're not sure that you won't throw up. A slow, deep breath in, keeping your chest as still as possible, and the same breath out again. Your stomach clenches, but you keep breathing. Maybe it's all going to come up, eventually, but you'll just continue breathing. However, once you've put a certain number of breaths behind you, it starts feeling less and less likely. Suddenly, without realizing that it happened, you're safe.  
Now, you just have the shattering headache to live with.  
When Chas wakes up- though, he doesn't recall thinking about going to sleep, just doing it- one unexamined action after another- like an animal- he's relieved to find that he's neither drunk nor hung-over. There's something he has to worry about, though-  
Before he can sift through his concerns for the irritant, it comes to him, on a streak of panic. And he breathes. He breathes in, covers his face in embarrassment, and in relief, that he left when he did. What was wrong with him, that he felt transfixed, watching-  
Watching.  
He can close his eyes, and watch it all again. Knowing someone for so long, especially someone like John, you see a lot of things you might not want to. It's not the first time he's seen something like this. Though not this particular variation.  
And he can only wonder what the hell happened after he left the first time. Though, it had obviously started earlier, when he and Zed were both still there. They were on their way to this the second Ritchie walked through the door. Possibly, before that. Chas had been gone for too long- thinking that he could have something else. This is what happens when he walks away, even for a moment: not only is he left out in the cold from what remains of his normal life, but his own, abnormal life, also closes its doors to him. He laughs bitterly to himself.  
He sighs.  
John is a grown-up. So is Ritchie. Still, the two of them, together, is as monumentally bad an idea now as it was years ago. It's a bad idea that's had time to mature into a horrible idea. What the fuck happened to Ritchie? It got bad for everyone, after Newcastle- look at Gary; look at Anne Marie- but Ritchie is just shattered. Chas had, of course, recognized him- it wasn't so drastic a change for Chas to say 'I didn't even recognize him'- but it was like looking at Ritchie after he'd been in Hell but somehow expelled. Which he probably had. They'd all dealt with it differently. This is probably how Ritchie, and John, both, deal with it, still.  
This is theirs. That realization shocks Chas. Actually shocks him.  
And, look- he's not a kid. He's not totally unknown to himself, lacking in self-awareness. Maybe, back when he first met John, some things were unclear, but for better or worse, he's learned, since then. Learned things that have taken other things from him. Things that he cannot have back. You can pretend with other people- sometimes, it's the best thing to do- but pretending with yourself is just stupid.  
He stayed, and he looked for as long as he did because he wanted to. He knew what he was walking in on. He recognized the shirt Ritchie was wearing earlier, saw the glasses on the table. Who else would John let into his home? Chas knew, but he still had to see.  
Because he wanted to. Wanted to see the two of them, together. Wanted to have part of what was only theirs- it's cruel and it's sick, but he felt like it was owed him. If John won't let him into his life, Chas will have to cut a door of his own-  
He knows it was wrong. If he's ever in this situation again, he'll walk away. He'll do the right thing. What he knows to be the right thing.  
But, God, what he saw-  
Was exactly what he wanted to see. He knows. He can't hide that from himself. He knows.  
So, what is he going to do about it, now?  
What he's going to do is

John wakes up. For the first few moments, when he's still hazy, he feels that loss. Describing it to other people makes him sound tough, stoic, if a little heartless, but the truth is that it's less a little ritual of his than something that can't be avoided. Ritchie would probably have something to say about it, that it's a memory, buried deep in his bones, of the awareness of the separation he felt upon being born. For the first nine months of his existence, he was functionally an organ in his mother's body, and to feel that body die must have been-  
But he doesn't want to go listening to anything that Ritchie might say.  
It's just the reality that he awakes to, like the awareness of his body. That feeling of loss is just another appendage. He's learned to appreciate it, in a way: you can't be afraid of what's already happened to you. He can make it his own, feed the legend.  
He yawns. Ritchie is next to him, having been too impaired or generally fucked-up to send home on his own last night. He has to stop doing this. If not for himself, then for Ritchie. For all of his histrionics, Ritchie did have a point: they're bad for other people. He is, Ritchie probably is. Gary. Anne Marie. They infect others. One day, Zed might find herself in a similar situation to his with Ritchie. John doesn't want that for her. There are some patterns that just don't bear repeating. Ask Chas and Renee.  
He's desperate for a fag, but Ritchie's still asleep, lying on his back in a slim line, compact and efficient even in somnolence. John sighs. He'd leave the room, but Ritchie could wake up when he's not there, think-  
Christ, the last thing he wants to do is start imagining what it is that Ritchie thinks about. He puts his hand over his mouth, frowns against the cigarette that isn't there. The bastard gets ten more minutes to wake up.  
As he's waiting for Ritchie to stir, and desperately not thinking about the lack of nicotine in his bloodstream, something comes back to him. It's like a clue in a mystery novel, written into the story so that the reader can be in on solving the puzzle, too. Only, if you're not observant, you might not understand its importance until you've gotten to the end. Keys. There was a set of keys on the kitchen counter. He remembers glancing at them around the time that Ritchie was trying to untie his tie and mangling it instead, and he would have pursued the matter further, but then, he got a bit distracted. They weren't Zed's keys. She has a handbag, so they'd be in there. They weren't Ritchie's- why would he have them out? They weren't John's. That leaves Chas. Like a cough, rattles through him the memory of seeing Chas put them down, before he started cooking. Why Chas put them there, John doesn't know or care; that's not the important thing. The important thing is that they stayed there, the whole night. So, how did Chas get into his house? Which he must have done, yeah?  
And here's a strange thing. There was a dream, a section of a dream- rising, now, to his awareness, now that he's no longer drunk or otherwise employed: an impression, a feeling of... Being touched without being actually handled. Cheryl used to tell him that, as a very young child, he would stand by her bed as she slept (“like the creepy little git that you were”), waiting for her to awake, as she eventually did because she felt him there. That was the first time it occurred to him that people carried with them a sensory as well as a visual imprint. Who did he feel in his dream?  
The other side of the bed moves as Ritchie awakens, winces against consciousness.  
“What time is it?” he asks.  
“Sorry, but I'm not wearing a watch at the moment.”  
“Okay.” Ritchie closes his eyes again, turns onto his side.  
“Look, you know I'm here, that I didn't abandon you in the night. Now, I'm just going to the living room for a cigarette.”  
“Fine,” Ritchie mumbles into the pillow, not at all touched by John's consideration. Then, “Where would you run to? It's your house.”  
John smiles, rolls his eyes. If he's getting up, he might as well get dressed. He tries to make more noise than is necessary, but Ritchie's beyond it, having settled back down into sleep. When John looks at him again, he's lying open-mouthed against the pillow, not a care in the world.  
In the living room, he lights his cigarette, sighs into it, sighs out smoke. After a couple of life-sustaining drags, he lets it rest in an ashtray, goes about picking up the clothing left on the floor. He puts his own shirt and tie on the table, drapes Ritchie's clothes over a chair. Folds up his glasses. Takes the empty tumblers to the kitchen.  
There are no keys on the counter. He walks around the room, looking for them, but he knows that they aren't there. Obviously, Chas came back. Forgot his own keys, but held onto John's.  
The obvious conclusion is beginning to form in John's mind, but somehow, he can't quite acknowledge it. If it were anyone other than Chas, it'd be hilarious, but somehow, there's nothing funny about this. He picks up Ritchie's glasses, puts them down again. Let him rest.  
John lights another cigarette, starts making breakfast.  
At some point, Ritchie must have come out to the dining room, because when John looks to the table, he's sitting there, wearing his glasses and one of John's shirts, holding his own clothes in his lap.  
“Good morning, Sunshine,” John says with a cheeriness even he can hear is forced. He sets down a plate in front of Ritchie, one for himself, and then himself, at the opposite side of the table. At first, Ritchie looks kind of puzzled- by breakfast, or by John making it, or by life and the universe, in general- but he obviously figures it out, because he begins eating, slowly, with a look of wariness and discomfort John's just going to leave alone.  
“If you don't have anything else to do, you could stay awhile,” John offers- but why? The second he says it, he feels something twist inside of him, someplace he doesn't like to feel anything. Still, he continues: “Get to know the place.”  
“Hmm,” Ritchie says, either not yet fully awake or not fully in this world. Then, a light comes on inside of him, and he looks up. “Yes. Yes, I'd like to.”  
“Good.” And not for the first time, John wonders what, exactly, he's doing, and why?  
After breakfast, he walks Ritchie around, shows him all of the sights and bits and bobs, answers questions. Like a bloody tour guide. Only, it's not as annoying as all of that, and Ritchie is interested. Ritchie likes to talk, and John used to think that it was in order to prove how much cleverer than you he was- and there might be some of that in there, too; John wouldn't begrudge him- but he really just wants information. And all of the nervousness, the affectations, the needless verbal flourishes- it's just the way he thinks. That he does it outside of his brain is a little unsettling.  
“Do you want to take a break for a while?” John asks after what could be a couple of hours but feels like a couple of days.  
“We can, if you want to.”  
“Ta. Old legs aren't made for walking.”  
He leaves Ritchie sitting on the couch, tosses him a volume he thinks might appeal. The little exclamation of delight he hears as he's walking away forces a smile to his face. He leaves the room, walks down a length of corridor. Calls Chas.  
The phone rings more times than it usually does, and John's resigning himself to uncertainty, to trying again later- when 'later' could mean in a few hours or a few days- when Chas picks up. He sounds non-specifically but definitely fucking rough.  
“Am I interrupting something?” Better to not ask if he's all right; he might not like the answer he gets.  
“No. No. What's going on?”  
“Nothing in particular. I just thought it might be nice if you stopped by, later.”  
“To make you dinner again.”  
“Did I say that?”  
“It was implied. Is Zed there?”  
“No. She's, er, busy. Ritchie's here.”  
“Okay.”  
“What does that mean?”  
“It means 'Okay'. Is Zed coming by?”  
“Na. Let her have some time on her own. It'll be just us lads.”

“Okay,” he says, and hangs up.  
Once, toward the end, during one of their increasingly operatic fights, Renee said what she'd obviously been dying to say for a long time:  
“All he has to do is crook his little finger, and you come running.” She'd laughed, snarling and jagged in triumph. “I can't tell if I'm your wife or his. I guess that would mean that he has two.”  
Chas, like an idiot, had asked what she meant by that. Of course, he knew, and of course, the smart thing to do would have been to walk away, let her cool down on her own, but sometimes, things just need to happen. You don't want them to; you just can't imagine them not happening.  
“Well, Francis,” she'd sneered, “If I'm your wife, but you're already married to him, that means that everything you have is his. Me, included, right? I have to worry about him, because if something happens to him, it happens to you. I have to care about him, because I care about you. Do you understand that?”  
“So, stop caring,” he'd muttered, and it was wrong, wrong, wrong, so wrong that to think of it, even now, makes him a little bit nauseous.  
“No, you stop caring. About one of us. I don't want to be married to two people. I don't love him. The way he has you twisted up, most of the time, I don't even like you. Make your choice.”  
Of course, Renee was right. He can't fault her for telling the truth. No more than he can fault himself for the way he feels.  
Which is?  
If it were just a sex thing, it would be easy. That's something he learned to deal with long ago. If he were just in love with John, it would be easy, too. Everyone's in love with John, even the people who hate him. Especially them, if possible. It's embarrassing, but you find a way to live with it.  
Funnily enough, it was Ritchie who understood better than anyone, better, even, than Chas, himself.  
“He makes you feel servile,” Ritchie had said, in his too-soft voice, even softer, because he'd been drinking, “If that's something you have in you, he'll find it and bring it out.”  
Of course, Chas had asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”, because that was just the best way to deal with Ritchie. Start acting like you understood him right away, and he'd just keep going, and then, you'd be lost forever.  
“John. He knows that you want to be needed, because to be needed is to be important. That's how he makes you feel.”  
“I don't-”  
“Not you, specifically. Not you, Chas Chandler. I mean,'you' in general. That's his secret. That's why you'll do anything for him. While he needs you, you're the most important person in the world. When he stops needing you, you'll do anything to get it back.”  
“That's great, Ritchie,” was all he said. Why the fuck did people always lay this crap on him?  
Of course, Ritchie was right. Like Renee was. Maybe it's something about his childhood. Maybe it's just something about the way he is. He doesn't know. He's not sure how much he wants to know. The better part of getting through life is often just letting things happen, and not thinking too much about them.  
Like this. John is trying to make something happen, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see what that 'something' is, and Chas doesn't understand- really, doesn't want to understand- but he'll just let it happen. Fuck knows how Ritchie's going to react, though. That's what Chas truly can't understand. The man is damaged- like they all are, but more-so, because Ritchie was always more. If Gary was a walking bruise, blood pouring out beneath the skin, obvious but easy to ignore, because it was contained, Ritchie's always been an oozing wound. Too much of him, on the outside, staining everything. Chas shakes his head. This is going to be- not interesting, because that implies that he hasn't been dragged into hundreds of John's ill-conceived thrill-seeking schemes, and long-ago gotten bored of it.  
No, he shakes his head again, this will be interesting. Just not in a nice way.

“Chas is going to come by, later.”  
Ritchie looks up. The light strikes his glasses, the shadows giving him the semblance of an owl. “Really.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Why's that?”  
“He's going to cook us dinner.”  
“Well, that's nice of him. What does he get out of it?”  
“Well, Ritchie, when people are friends, they occasionally like to do nice things for each other. You've read about it, surely.”  
“He was here last night.”  
“Yes, he was.”  
“And he's coming again, tonight.”  
“That's right.”  
“He doesn't mind?”  
“He didn't seem to.”  
“Is your lady-friend coming, as well?”  
“Zed? No, she has things to do.”  
“Huh,” says Ritchie, and returns to his book.  
It leaves him with a strange cold feeling, like the withdrawal of warmth you've got used to. When he thinks about it, though, John doesn't know what else he expected.

John Constantine is a conman. Ritchie tries not to look down on him too much for this. It's in his nature; somehow, inherent to who he is. A conman makes you believe. In what he's telling you, yes, but also that it's what you want, and that it's actually you who came up with it. The truly effective conman knows how to read people, knows how to figure out what they really want- maybe even before they do- and somehow convince them he's the key to their desire. That you're in it together. John's always made the mistake of overplaying his hand, laying it on too thick. He's good, but he's also lucky; he's always been lucky to be surrounded by people whose needs are so easy to guess, and so overwhelming. With them, it doesn't take much convincing, at all. Richie supposes that John's gotten rusty. Because what he's doing now is attempting to take without giving. In order to get what you want, you have to give a little something. That's just physics.  
But Ritchie's no scientist, here, no cool observer. He's in this, part of it. From the inside, it's easier to see, but it's harder to control the situation. If he were so interested in control, though, he never would have come here.  
He sits and reads his book, content to let John think that he's getting exactly what he wants. For whatever reason he wants it. Motivation is important to the conman, but that's not Ritchie, so he doesn't have to care all that much. Most of the time, his own motivations are a mystery to him; imagine if he had to keep track of other peoples'! Over his book, he smiles.  
“What's so funny, then?”  
“Oh, just the way this Latin is translated; it reminded me of something I read in Decoding Reality, about-”  
“Never mind.”  
Ritchie shrugs. “Suit yourself.”  
The time passes pleasantly. He takes it for granted that John is watching him, and the feeling is an irritant but not without its charm. Even if he's only being looked at as a mark, someone to defraud for some Byzantine purpose that may be unknown even to John, himself, it's nice to have John thinking about him. That's always been a problem. John's the kind of person you want all of- though, you don't know what you'd do with him if you had him. It makes you stupid; it turns you into the worst version of yourself. But he'll fool you into thinking that he's bringing out the best in you. You'll light up, but you're going to burn out to do it. That's just physics, too.  
The smell of the whiskey reaches him, and he barely has time to look for its source before John is pushing a tumbler under his nose. It's even a double.  
“Thank you, John. You think of everything.”  
“You're welcome,” John says, sounding- surprised? He'll have to mark this date on his calendar: the day he surprised John Constantine. John goes back to wherever he was in the room; Ritchie hears him set his glass down and pick it up again.  
It's a cozy house. Weird, but cozy. Maybe the weirdness makes it nicer, like cold makes you appreciate human warmth. Ritchie feels like he could spend a lot of time here. Feathering John's nest with him. The whiskey must be doing things to him. Good. More like: he could become a permanent exhibit in this little museum. What's it worth to own a man who was, even for a few moments, a god?  
Late in the afternoon, Chas appears, with bags of groceries and the expression of one who's woken up in a strange place.  
“Hello, Chas,” Ritchie puts down the book and rises to help him. It's the least he can do. To apologize for last night. And for what's about to happen. Does that make him an accomplice, now, instead of a mark?  
“Hi, Ritchie.”  
“Long time, no see.”  
Chas looks at him, then realizes that he's making a joke, and smiles.  
“You get home all right?” Ritchie asks, so that Chas will look at him, notice what shirt he's wearing.  
Which he does. “Um, yeah? And you?”  
“I wasn't in any condition to get home on my own, so John graciously let me stay here. He even let me borrow one of his shirts. Isn't he great?” It's unnecessary, but, well, if this is a game, he's going to play.  
“Yeah, he's swell. I'm going to start dinner.”  
John has been watching them. Thinking who knows what. He just gives Ritchie another drink, and pours one for Chas, who looks at them both, then takes a very small sip, then one for himself, which he downs.  
“Go easy,” Chas says with a laugh, “If you pass out in your soup, I'm leaving you there.”  
John laughs back, loosens his tie.  
Oh, dear, Ritchie mouths but doesn't say aloud. By now, Chas is looking at John, and John has turned his attention to Chas. Ritchie takes his place at the dining room table, still reading. When he was young, his mother always told him not to read at the table. Thinking of that, he smiles.  
Dinner, of course, is lovely. John goes deeper and deeper into his cups, begins telling absurd stories that go nowhere, but it's pleasant to listen. John has the kind of voice that makes you want to listen. Ritchie tries not to drink so much, but John keeps pouring it for him, so what's he going to do? If Chas drinks at all, Ritchie doesn't notice. That's good. Someone should be responsible for what they do tonight.  
“I'll help you with the dishes,” Ritchie says, sways a little as he stands, which makes John laugh, which makes Ritchie smile, which shapes Chas' face into a concerned expression with no answer. John stays at the table, smoking a cigarette. Watching, but too far from them to hear clearly what they say to each other.  
“Do you know what's going on with him?” Chas asks, running the water.  
“I have no idea. But I can't wait to find out. Can you?”  
Chas narrows his eyes. “So, this isn't something the two of you have cooked up together?”  
“No. He's more likely to take you into his confidence, isn't he?”  
Chas shakes his head. “There's a lot that John doesn't tell me.”  
“Well, you have two choices: leave, and perhaps never find out, or...”  
“Or?”  
“Stay, and accept whatever happens next.”  
“What are you going to do?”  
“Oh, once again, I'm in no condition to find my way home. I'll have to stay the night, I suppose.”  
The look that Chas fixes him with is hard, but not without compassion. “I could drive you home.”  
“And then, what?”  
“What?”  
“And then, what?”  
“I don't understand.”  
“I mean, what would happen next?”  
“I got that part. I mean, I don't understand why you're asking. What you're asking.”  
“I'll answer my own question. I go home, and I fall asleep. Alone.”  
“I don't need to know this.”  
“I think you do.”  
“Why are you telling me this?”  
“Because you have a right to know. What's been going on.”  
“John's life is his own.”  
“But you're a part of his life.”  
Chas says nothing. There are no more dishes to wash but the water is still running. Ritchie reaches across him, turns it off. “If you truly want to go,” he tells Chas, “don't let him convince you to stay. You know that he will. You'll even want to. You'll convince yourself that something else is happening, but eventually, he'll have you believing it was all your idea.”  
“You two have a nice chat?” John asks.  
“Yeah. It was very informative,” says Chas.  
“What did you talk about?”  
“Thermodynamics,” Ritchie supplies, “the conservation of matter.”  
“Ah. Chas, I wanted to ask you, did you ever find your keys last night?”  
This is significant, somehow. Ritchie's not sure if he's lost the plot, or was never aware of it, but he knows that something's about to happen. Something that has to do with Chas' keys, apparently.  
“You know I did.”  
“When you came back for them, did you happen to find anything else?”  
Ritchie's looking at Chas, who's looking at John, who's looking at Chas. “What else could I have found?” Chas asks.  
“It's just that you would have come back quite late, and Ritchie and I had gone to bed by then-”  
Oh.  
“-and I don't recall hearing you come back in.”  
“I was quiet.”  
“You didn't wonder where we were?”  
“Not especially.”  
“It's just, I remember leaving a bit of a mess, and I can only imagine what you thought when you saw it.”  
“I probably thought that it was none of my business.”  
John turns to him. “Ritchie, this is more up your alley, being a science question: people talk about feeling as though they were being watched, but is there any scientific evidence supporting that impression?”  
He starts talking without even thinking. As long as sound is coming out of him, he's safe. From what? “It's long been thought that there was a psychic basis for it, but recently, people have tended more to the explanation that it's simply hyper-vigillance, which is a protective adaptation. However, there's still a lot that we don't know about the senses, and we're coming to understand that there are more than just the conventional five, the ability to tell up from down, for one. When someone's vestibular apparatus is damaged-”  
“Were you watching us?”  
Ritchie closes his mouth. This is going too far. He's not sure where he thought it would end, but it's gone past the natural point of termination.  
“Yes.”  
“Oh, shit,” Ritchie exhales, but neither of them is looking at him. Of course, he expected something like this, but not this, exactly. How could he have expected this?  
“Did you like what you saw?”  
“John-” he begins, not sure what he's going to say next.  
It doesn't matter, because John ignores him, and repeats his question to Chas.  
He doesn't want to hear the answer. He doesn't want to be hearing any of this. He knew that something was going on, that once again, something was happening behind the scenes, and he was just- only just!- smart enough to catch on to that, but-  
He's never as smart as he thinks he is.  
“Don't answer,” he murmurs, then looks at Chas, who is now looking at him. He feels the blood simultaneously rush from his head and rush to his face.  
But no one ever takes his advice.  
“Yeah,” says Chas, now looking at John again, “I did.”  
And John claps his hands together, smiles horribly. “That wasn't so hard, was it?”  
He needs to go. He needs to move. Will Chas still drive him home? He's beginning to feel irrelevant; he's already played his role, and now, it's time for him to melt into the background. He looks at the couch; it looks comfortable enough. He can sleep there. In the morning, he'll see about finding a ride home. He's tired, and he's no longer able to ignore the pains in his body.  
“So, are you interested?”  
“John,” Ritchie says, before this can go any further, “while the spirit might be willing, the flesh is weak. If you and Chas want to amuse yourselves, that's fine. But I'm tired.”  
John raises his eyebrows. “You don't even want to watch?”  
“As much as I enjoy being a party to your compulsive exhibitionism, I really don't have the energy.”  
“If you're worried about dashing anyone's hopes, Chas is very understanding. I certainly know better than to expect miracles.”  
Oh, fuck you, John. “Because this is exactly what I want to discuss. For the third time in less than a week.”  
John shrugs. “Open communication is important.”  
“Not when I don't want to fucking talk about it.”  
Thankfully, Chas says nothing.  
“Chas?”  
Chas shrugs, says, “Sure. Why not?”  
Ritchie gets up, retrieves a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the kitchen. As he's doing that, John and Chas leave the room. Ritchie might as well be in another dimension from them. He drops himself onto the couch, a sulk winding about him like something tangible. He starts drinking. He's drinking, and he's drinking. And he's drinking. He's been drinking too much, lately, because all that hits him is this weird jellied feeling, and too much heat on his throat, in his head. He's too drunk to try to read, and he doesn't dare fall asleep. Who knows what his dreams would be? So, he does the only thing left for him to do, all other actions having been obliterated by his own stupidity.  
Up he stands with a huff, and he drags himself around the house, slow but purposeful like a revenant, until he comes to John's bedroom. The door has been thoughtfully left open. Was this what it was like for Chas, last night? How peculiar, to think of their places reversed. It gives him a sort of fellow-feeling with Chas, so that he wants to reach out and touch him, but he can't. John is wrapped around him. Where would his hands fit? Two things can't occupy the same space at the same time.  
It's wrong, somehow, to make his presence known, so he stays silent, hangs like a door in the frame. Later, he can ask John if he felt his presence, like he claims to have felt Chas'. It's for science.  
Was it like this? Did Chas feel what he feels, now? Well, not drunk.  
Is he jealous? It suggests itself, automatically. It's an easy feeling to sink into. As far as he knows, he was there before Chas. But he couldn't stay. No one stays long with John. Then, this bitterness that seems to start from the outside in, pricking your skin until it's eaten through your miserable hide, and it's inside of you, turning you into itself. Ritchie looks away.  
But he must have made a sound, or there's something to the psychic staring effect, after all, because John says, surprisingly coolly: “Ritchie. Why don't you come and join us?”  
“If there's room...” He can't stop himself. Why does he try?  
“Of course there is.”  
Finally, he's the kind of drunk that pushes him out of himself. So, it's easy to take off his clothes. To get into bed with them. Chas gets up for a second, so Ritchie can move in, next to John, and then, Chas is on top of both of them, tangled up with both of them. And John is kissing him, and someone's hand is on his face. His eyes are closed, so he can't tell whose, and he prefers it that way. Prefers the idea of being with both of them. As though he could dissolve like an element, mingle himself with the atmosphere around them; get into both of them, by way of their lungs.  
Then, he does kiss Chas. Reaches up, brave in inebriation, receives a sweet and unreadable smile, pulls him down. Hears a surprised sound from John, who covers it with a cough. There are hands on him, hot on his skin, which feels heated from the inside, as though spreading the flush on him like paint. He's a toy, he knows, an accessory. That's his function in this. An interesting toy, a toy with a mind of its own- but he knows.  
And is content. All of his anger or his bitterness or his jealousy- they're gone. Out of simple fatigue. And he's satisfied to turn onto his side, to watch them, now, from the inside of this. But not too far on inside. He's always going to be touching the outside. Not a voyeur, but a wall; the thing that separates them from the cold air of the room. Rewarded with a kiss, a touch, a sop to his vanity.  
But there's no shame in recognizing your place in things.  
So, let them do what they will.  
And they will.  
Chas is on top of John, face to face, holding John's hands over his head. Suddenly, Ritchie feels a great rush of hilarity: of course. It was always obvious. Two things can't occupy the same space at the same time. His space was already taken; he just didn't know it yet. Until its owner came to claim it, he was just keeping it warm.


End file.
